2011-05-27 - Battle over White Russia
White Russia 18:05 O'Clock, local time The skies are fairly cloudless, the night is starting to fall, and the still rather bad looking cities of White Russia only have few lights poluting the horizon. In many a ways, this whole display could be concidered beautiful. The moon could be seen in the skies, the stars are twinkling, and the people on this planet are blissfully aware once again of the fact that aliens are out for their lives. Or rather... they try to forget the actions of the recent Balmarian invasion. In many a way, it is surprising just how fast the factions - the fedation, the Divine Crusaders, and Katharon, went right back at eachother's throats the moment the aliens had been removed from the Earth Sphere. But this peace, this moment where those poor men believe they are safe, suddenly is disrupted! There, towards the east of the border, explosions! A fierce red light destroys the silence with a thumping sound that is to be expected from some kind of heavy weaponsfire. An old military base, being used by an A-LAWS organization known as ACEMOS for experiments, is under attack by an unknown foe. A distress call goes out, but is quickly cut short by the massive quality of ECM in the area. Only a few might have actually gotten the S.O.S. on A-LAWS secure broadband. There, over the tarmac of the base, littered with pieces of metal of old LEV units, as well as a few still active GN-XIIIs, a red machine floats, its weapos primed. The entire body is aglow with the light of Metatron, dartling off of its body like embers off of a wood-fed flame, drifting to the ground like feathers of a Shadow Angel's. This is the Orbital Frame known as Amenthes, Phoenix of the BAHRAM Space Fleet, holding its framerunner - Lieutenant Ascian Luddite. It's the Divine Crusaders! The sky-blue shape of the Brynhildr rockets through the cloud cover, leaving complicated contrails in the wake of its wingtips. Sure, she's meant to be on just a standard patrol, but as of right now for Aki Saitani even a 'standard patrol' is better than an endless battery of strictly regulated test flights and fly zones and action pointer checklists and a distinct lack of /looking really cool in a mech/. Unable to help herself now that she's actually out there and flying, the machine forgoes standard straightforward boring old flight and instead dips and bobs and weaves through the odd barrel roll and loop-the-loop before brutally cleaving a poor, innocent cloud in two with its heavy speBZZT BZZT BZZT BZZT MAYDAY. "Eh? A-aah...!" Inside the cockpit, Aki's latest triumphant whoop and punch at the air is cut short by the blaring of her radio, and she fumbles with it, only barely managing to hear the location in time before it cuts out to dead air and static. For a moment she frowns at mid-air, then flicks across frequences to an A-LAWS despatch who rapidly wishes they didn't have to deal with this shit when she starts talking a mile a minute. "Aki Saitani, reportin' in White Russia, ma'am! Distress calls from the ACEMOS installation! Goin' ahead to take a look since I'm right there!" She drops the radio, ignoring the squawks of disapproval and calls to wait for backup, and the Brynhildr's engines pick up proper, focused speed. * Barely a minute or two later and Aki's hovering down to ground level at the base, scanning around the wreckage before catching sight of the enemy presence. "Identify--" Right. Loudspeakers on, kiddo. "Er! Identify yourself! Please?" Ascian's Amenthes remains perfectly afloat, its wings spread - Metatron crystals jutting out between their folds. The head of the unit turns slightly when the Brynhildr approaches, after which the entire unit quickly turns about. "The... hell? What's that new type of Personal Trooper?" Ascian exclaims to Duat, the on board sentient Artificial Intelligence. "Unknown." The A.I. replies in its British female voice, and then continues to explain that "The sensors do not recognize the model.". "Tssk... first a new Gespenst, and now this?" Ascian mutters, gritting his teeth slightly and raising the shields on the Amenthes... waiting for the enemy to pull out its guns and start firing at him. It was transmitting an A-LAWS IFF after all, and they didn't usually wait to fire. So when Aki finally hovers over the ground and /doesn't/ fire at him... he's quite surprised. This surprise only grows when a girl talks over the speakers of that thing. There's a little groan that escapes from the young man. "Why do they let young girls on thes~... Duat, open the Comm-channel." -- Within moments, if Aki has a compatible system, a video&audio link is established between the two units, for her to accept. "This is Ascian Luddite, of the BAHRAM Space Fleet." At least he was nice enough to identify himself. But if the girl really wanted to see the insides of that cockpit, with Ascian is the rather tight looking flightsuit, is a completely different topic all-together. "Please leave this area at once, or I will have to shoot you down, do you understand? I rather not have the death of some little girl in a fancy new toy on my consience." Ascian continues to mutter, glaring at her through the video-link with a single eye. The other eye is bound off by a bandage for some reason. At the same time, the Amenthes raises its left arm, which morphs. Metal shifting, bioluminescent light pulsing through the machine's body like blood through veins, after which a red bolts darts right past her unit. A warningshot. In the same instant, and without so much as a change of orientation, the side of the Brynhildr lights up with an array of blue flames as several banks of lateral thrusters burst the machine away from the attack. On the viewscreen, the kid - well, okay, probably a young woman but it's really hard to tell when she's glaring that heavily and point-blank at the camera, leaning forward in excitement - puffs up her cheeks in annoyance, barely even noticing the evasive maneuvers she's doing. A-LAWS standards must be slipping - she's in uniform, but over the top of her flight suit's a baggy and battered jacket. "And this is Aki Saitani of A-LAWS askin' you to leave this area at once! Technically we were here /first/, sir, what with the big /base/ and all that!" The Brynhildr grounds itself, skidding to a halt in a burst of azure flame and sparks; the spear in its hand smashes against the ground hard enough to leave a solid scar in the base foundations before the mech rockets forwards, using the momentum to push off and gain the little extra speed needed for a full frontal attack. "--and don't yer dare underestimate either of us when it comes down to our performance!" Rising back up from the ground to meet the Amenthes, another boost of energy rockets the mech forward then twists it laterally, bringing the spear up and around in a gigantic slice forwards. "Tsssk." She could probably see Ascian's expression turn to a sneer just before he cut the contact. The Amenthes however, was already moving without him having to expressly concentrate on this fact. The red humanoid Phoenix machine moves slightly back. "I can't believe they are sticking young women like her into these things these days." You'd think he'd be used to this by now. Or maybe this whole thing was just cutting a bit close to home for him. Still. She was barely even wearing a proper uniform. Did she maybe /steal/ that thing? No, surely someone wouldn't be claiming to be from A-LAWS like that. Not to mention, that... piloting skill... Ascian knows when he is in front of someone who is at least more skilled than your average pilot. And when that spear smashes against the ground, the Amenthes is quick to lift off from the ground. There's however, no sight of any proper verniers or propulsion systems. It just... /floats/ around as if it was nothing. Clearly, what was on-board this thing, wasn't anything even remotely similar to the Tesla drive system. The Amenthes twists about, and with another boost of speed, quickly outruns the enemy unit whilst lowering both of its arms backwards and firing a volley of bolts right at Aki's unit, before Ascian guides the unit to swing around again and halt. <"I don't know who you think you are. But don't think that machine of yours is a match to Amenthes!"> Not 'the Amenthes', but just 'Amenthes', showing some level of personification of the machine. The speakers remain on for a little longer. <"As for this base being yours. Yeah. I'm quite aware it's A-LAWS'. But if you knew what ACEMOS did, you wouldn't be defending these people."> The hangar of the base opens, and a set of slow looking machines wander out. Phantoma IIs, lifting their gigantic beam rifles up into the air and releasing a volley of beams straight at the Amenthes, which weaves in and out of the assault with near impossible grace for something not controlled by a Gundam Fighter. The right arm then comes up again, and within the cockpit, Ascian watches through a near targetting reticule as the machine aims for the right arm of Aki's Brynhildr, and finally unleashes a thick streak of red plasma that scars the night's sky. With her first strike going wild, Aki is pushed back onto the defensive; though her mech wildly swings itself back and forth on a wide circle via a variety of lateral boosts, it can't avoid the entirety of the hail of bullets and several glance off segments of armor to leave hissing pockmarks and scratches in their wake. As the last of the volley of shots closes in, the Brynhildr suddenly swings back around to face them dead on, setting the spear; something within the internal workings jolt in much the same way as a gigantic gun might, and the air in front of the machine is alive with rolling flames, burning away the last of them. As her vehicle swoops and spins, Aki jabs at her console twice, trying to reopen a public video link but only getting a signal rejection; gritting her teeth, she simply opts for jamming her own speakers back on in reply. <"I'm defending these people because /you/ attacked! If you'd just left them alone there wouldn't even be a problem! Aaaaaargh!"> she finishes in frustration, not even bothering to turn the tannoy off until she's gotten it out, then switches over to internal radios to bark out an eager order to her new support. "Keep on with the fire support, guys! Movin' in!" The Brynhildr reassumes its dead-on charge; as the beam of plasma spits from the red mech's arm it merely tilts the slightest amount, rolling around the outside of it in an almost lazy curve whose speed is belied by its easy tempo. Aki's spear bucks twice more mid-charge; from it, two canisters looking for all the world like the most unwieldy solid-slug bullet ever are ejected, launching towards the enemy. Right behind them, the Brynhildr is already entering a familiar attack pattern, another lateral roll to sweep the spear upwards. But... rather than aim for Amenthes, it instead slices straight through both of the slugs in succession - they explode outwards in a wild explosion, bathing the area just in front of them in a rapidly-exploding hail of fire. "What the hell is that lance?" The pilot of the Amenthes mutters to himself, seeming a bit confused about the workings of the Brynhildr. "Get me some data, Duat." At the same time, he notices a little burning indicator at the edge of his console. "Tssk, trying to start another link with me... fine." he taps his finger against the left of the two control-orbs, enabling Aki from starting a video-link if she really wanted to. He even sends a quick signal to the girl, indicating that he is no longer blocking the signal. <"Of course. This is a war! This is a war for the freedom of Mars to me. And I am going to destroy and and all of those who dare oppress my people!"> Getting a bit of Moses going on there much? The Amenthes swoops towards the left as the enemy unit charges just... head on. "Geesh, this pilot is insane." Ascian mutters, the red orbital frame clearing the way and being pushed even further back when Aki's spear just out and bullets fly towards his position - then are exploded way too close for his comfort! The shields of the unit flare up brightly, and the entire unit rocks under the insane explosions sent of by those bullets. "Okay... guess we're dealing with an ace here. Because there is no way some stupid mook would be pulling off such stunts. Time to get serious!" He squints his eyes and the red flow of Metatron quickly rushes through his body, setting the areas beneath his eyes alight for a moment, as he synchronizes further with the machine. The wings twitch and adjust, ensuring that it is once again on a proper path, before it rushes straight in for the Brynhildr! That's right, the normally ranged superior machine goes in for the close combat! Its left arm shifts and changes into a long sword of sorts, and swings right towards the back of the enemy unit, after which the Amenthes swings around and its wings suddenly send a storm of beams from them, trying to trap the enemy unit within them. These were not your average homing lasers, they seem to absolutely defy physics as they form a ball of sorts around the enemy unit, cutting closer and closer to the machine, trying to trap it and cut through its general body! A video-link between the two pops back up, and Aki's face once again dominates the camera; she's grinning like a lunatic, her face set somewhere between total excitement and a good solid dose of fear and just a little abject terrified sweating. Even as the bolts of light close in on her machine, she's eager to supply a speech. "An' what about me? I ain't done anything to suppress you, but you still fired first! It's only a war because yer /want/ it that way! Or at least, you're pretty good at looking and soundin' it! So come on, then, you'll have to do better than that!" The Brynhildr suddenly spins at the last moment, spear whirling in a mad dance around it and emitting a 'k-chunk k-chunk k-chunk' sound as it ignites repeatedly, spewing short range blasts in all directions. The nearest of the lasers are simply burnt away in their shadow, providing Aki a little breathing room and the Brynhildr the chance to reach for its hip. "Gungnir, ignition!" she yells, clearly kind of forgetting that her video link is /right there and open/ and she's probably just taken Ascian's ears off and there's no-one even in her cockpit to even hear her, what the hell, kid? A panel retracts from the mech's leg, spitting out a length of thick, solid power cabling into its hand; without any real pomp or circumstance, it gets slammed into an access port along the length of the spearshaft, any slack on it quickly retracting. Almost immediately afterwards a high-pitched whine kicks up, the exhaust ports on the head of the spear starting to glow first a dull red, then a bright yellow, then an eye-searing white visible even past the remnants of the lasers around her. "Twenty, fifty, sixty-five-- eh, good enough! I'm breakin' through!" The mech's final spin of the spear comes at the same time as the head outright ignites, a lengthy shining blade of plasma forming at the tip. All of a sudden the Brynhildr is moving, and moving /fast/ - it bursts away from the ball of death through one of the many swiss cheese holes pierced through its perimeter, launching around in a wide arc to converge on the DC machine from one side. Aki's raw yell rebounds over the intercom as the XBPR-004 stabs twice at the red mech, then launches past it with a feint and swing that leaves a soaring trail of energy marking its path. Ascian kind of hangs his head a bit when Aki begins to speak, obviously talking about things she had /no clue/ about. "Stop threating this like some kind of childish game, kid." It's not like he's shouting, but he's clearly getting irritated. "And it's called a god-darned warning shot. If I wanted to hit your machine at that distance, I would have aimed for your cockpit." In fact, he /hasn't/ been aiming for her cockpit this entire battle. The young man suddely shuts down however, when her unit suddenly spins its spear about. The Amenthes casually floats back, making minor adjustments in its movement as it continues along, the beams continueing to cut along, until suddenly they get... cast aside!? No, they're destroyed by some kind of inginition system within the spear!? What the heck /is/ that spear!? "Tssk..." From the standpoint of an accomplished test pilot, the framerunner can appreciate new toys like this. But as a soldier, someone who is up against this Tesla monster machine, he's getting irritated... and nervous. It's not often that Ascian actually get nervous, but somehow, this child here is getting the better of him! He can't keep taking it easy on this youngster. But at the same time, his energy output is quickly dwindling because of the amount of power he's had to put into simply evading the enemy's attacks and the sustained homing laser fire. He wished for the good days, where he'd come up against that ace lion pilot, who'd actually get caught within that web of homing beams. But not this pilot! The cockpit of the Amenthes continues to glow its deep red glow, the pulse of the bioluminescence increasing in speed and hue, and the slight red light beneath Ascian's eyes continues to lightly pulse, as the slight Metatron poisoning of his body reacts to the energy within the connected system. "I suggest a longer range assault." Duat reports to its framerunner. In response, the Amenthes quickly darts back whilst the Brynhildr comes for it, scarring the shield of the Amenthes, but having no effect in the end. "The output on that machine..." Ascian is basically gritting his teeth here. "... it's amazing. Continue to record this data, Duat." It would appear that Ascian has forgotten that the video link is still active as well. The Amenthes rises further up into the sky, wings wide and its arms spread - changing into their rifle forms, whilst it lifts itself to a point between the base and the moon - with Aki in the middle of it all. Space then begins to... warp. Whatever little clouds there were get destroyed in an instant as space begins to bend and compress between the ground and Amenthes - and potentially catching Aki within whilst the Phoenix tips down both of its arms and brings them together. The nozzles of both weapons move close together, and when the rifles connect, metal begins to continue to morph, connecting the two machines. The two claws against what can only be described as Amenthes' breasts turn and twist like some kind of monster from a horror movie and then /clamp/ onto the base of the rifle which is beginning to gather a huge energy signature at the front, whilst the flow of Metatron throughout the unit concentrates on that point. The core of the machine lets its weaponized energy flow straight through those claws to the tip of the suddenly rather sizable beam weapon. And Ascian can't help but remember for a moment... Wing Zero. A machine he'd assisted in destroying, and had left its pilot devastated. This memory has him looking a bit pensive for a moment, before concentrating on the unit beneath him and doing some adjustments to the weapon, before finally releasing the energy. "This isn't a game kid!" He calls out again, and suddenly the entire area is /bathed/ in the crimson glow of bent energy being pushed to the limits as a pure wave of beam-energy crashes down, intent on destroying whatever remained of the base below, and crushing its underground section - with Aki caught in the middle! Aki goes wide with her launching strike, but at least she's clear of the static and strangely immobile deathtrap left behind her - even if, as is rapidly being established as her norm, she's just rocketing straight into another one immediately afterwards. Her machine jinks and swerves in its rather distracting way; there's something eye-wrenching about the method in which it doesn't change facing as it jets through maneuvers that gives it an air not unlike the red mech's mysterious floating ability, just more hurried and considerably more wild. Almost the moment she's swooped past her opponent she's already firing rear thrusters to try to curve around for another pass; not the best of plans when people have ranged weapons and you don't, but she's learning. Possibly? Maybe? ... yeah, probably not, as she's converging straight on that beam at rocket speed. "If you gotta warning shot, just don't shoot at all! That's half the reason everyone's in these messes all the time!" she counters with exasperation in her voice and a roll of her eyes, but she's cut off as something in her console suddenly and audibly goes 'ping!' over the comlink and causes her to look down for just long enough to grin broadly. "And if yer think you're going to take down the Tesla's pride and joy--" she crows as the flickering and pulsing blade at the end of her spear stabilises even further, lengthening yet again as the whining hum of ignition ramps up several notches, "--you got another thing comin'!" The Brynhildr plunges into the path of the bright red beam; it strafes against the machine's light armor for several instants and leaves one side of the mech littered with angry black scars, but then all of a sudden tears away in two as the sky-blue mech suddenly bursts itself up off the ground and straight upwards, spear held out in front of it as a shield and another lancing charge - there's no subtlety or finesse to it, just a single launching strike along the most suicidal and improbable vector available. "Haaaaaaa--!!" Aki yells loudly yet again; at least this time, mercifully, the auto-ducking technology kicks in to reduce the comlink's volume to suitable levels. "Again! Stop treating this like some kind of game!" Ascian replies in response to Aki's claim that he shouldn't have shot at her to begin with. The young man's eyes then widen to almost twice their size when the girl darts... straight through the beam of the Amenthes' double rifle mode. "What the... Sunlight-o Slasher!?" The Orbital Frame rips the two rifles appart forcefully, causing the beam to split and scar the horizon as the remnants of energy lash two ways across the base and create a huge gash in the middle. Some of the GN-XIII and LEV units are caught in the path and are almost immediately incinerated. It kind of makes it clear just what kind of force the Brynhildr had just survived! The tailfeathers of the Amenthes lash out downwards under the sudden pressure as Ascian firmens his grip on the unit's control sphere and forces it to lift up towards the air as fast as possible. The Phoenix frame bursts away with speed, quickly jolting to the right, trying to get out of the path of the enemy unit, but to no avail it would appear! The lance's blade strikes true against the extended left arm of the Amenthes and cuts it straight off! The Amenthes is sent toppling through the air for a moment, whilst the arm tumbles into the air the other way and soon explodes in a gigantic explosion of red embers, Metatron radiation quickly filling the skies for a moment, sending a wave of ECM like signal throughout the area that cut off the connection between Aki and Ascian for a moment. Within the cockpit, Ascian lets out a little pained sound, as sparks fly from the right control sphere in response to the pain of Amenthes - and Duat protecting the framerunner by buffering the sudden overload of energy. "Hssss. Damnit. Duat... I hope you are recording all of this." The young man mutters, then turns his head up to see the sky-blue mech shine high up in the air, above the Amenthes now, looking almost angelic for a moment with the moon as its backdrop. Where-as the Amenthes could do nothing but look more like a demon. When the machine finally comes out of the tumble and reasserts its balance in the air, a bright icon is burning in the HUD, claiming that the right arm is, indeed, missing. And the pilot can already feel that incredible pressure coming from the machine, as the personalities hidden within try to force themselves to the front. Duat is keeping them buffered out for the moment, but if he'd synchronize any more than this, things would likely end up badly. The connection reestablishes. "Hold on in there, Amenthes. Don't go freaking out on me." Ascian mutters, and engages a somewhat rarely used weapon system. The tailfeathers of the Phoenix like unit suddenly start getting their own flow of energy, as it relocalizes its flow and begins to form what look like a series of small spheres at their tips. Red bulbs of weaponized Metatron energy, being caught in an expanding section of compressed space, that slowly moves along with the collective movements of the tailfeathers, hidden behind the back of the Amenthes. Gathering, growing, looking like balls of fire as embers start to drip from them like a Shadow Angel's red feathers, thicker, stronger. "So, this is one of Tesla's machines huh?" The EFA must be preparing for something big, if they are pouring out all these new weapons! Ascian tries to distract Aki for a moment whilst the burst weapons power up. The Amenthes itself quickly starts to exude a gas-like energy signature however, that easily betrays that something powerful is starting to gather within. "Well, after I destroy this pretty machine of yours, maybe I can come by the institute and steal its blueprints!" And finally, the Orbital Frame pushes forwards again, the remaining left arm shifting into a blade. Faster and faster, the wings take the Amenthes up, much like the Brynhildr... no... Aki's combat style, and it almost looks like he's about to engage in melee combat when the unit suddenly stops, twirls about and cuts wide towards it, after which it flings those four spheres of destructive explode-on-contact spheres, aimed at the general area around the Brynhildr! The Brynhildr disappears under the wave of explosions, battered and beaten as it gets thrown to one side by the first impact and straight into the path of the second; it's quickly out of sight as large swathes of the air ignite around the four blasts, bathing the sky red in the aftermath of the attack. The comlink between the two machines stays off, nothing but dead static; dimly, somewhere in the middle of the carnage, can be seen the shadow of the Tesla Leicht mech as it is surely burnt to a crisp by the repeated assaults. Except... well... that shadow's getting larger, and the edges around it are starting to turn a silvery blue through the plumes of smoke, and a now familiar face flicks back up for a few moments before the comlink resolves back into static, brief stuttered notes of another battle cry sounding tinny over a damaged voice link. The explosions at the edge of the storm suddenly plume outwards in the direction of the Amenthes; a moment later Aki Saitani, rookie and probably certifiably insane A-LAWS pilot comes screaming out of it at full power, entire banks of the engines on the back of the craft guttering for more power but somehow managing to fire on all cylinders. She races straight for her enemy, spinning the gigantic spear in her mech's hands to leave a bright circle of white at her side; then she's raced straight past the machine's right shoulder, the circle expanding into a complicated weave of strikes faster than the eye can see. One must understand, Ascian normally has horrid luck against any pilot that excells at melee combat. However... Lances. There's something about Lances. This goes quite a way back... all the way to the Balmarian invasion... when he met the one known as Adom Nazir, and her Ezekiel which had assaulted the Amenthes with its lance weapon. Later on, Macua Huitl - to him, still Adom Nazir - had attacked The Beast with those same techniques. He could read this weapon, it was a lot more predictable than a sword to him! But Aki... Aki's technique is different. The Amenthes's single sword arm comes out and deflects the first stabbing strike coming from the Brynhildr and is pushed back a little. Another stab! Ascian can see time almost slowing down as it comes in. His memories are quickly flowing in, he's gaining confidence. "Just like Adom..." He whispers to himself, trying to remain calm. Another swipe, another deflecti~... no! No! The spear had changed its direction! The heavy weapon crashes right into the belly of the Amenthes, distorting the synchronization between Ascian and Amenthes once more as Duat surpresses the feedback and shorts the connection for a moment. And that's the moment where Aki's technique continues without halt, crashing into the same spot time and time again, breaking through the SS armor, and finally creating a gigantic hole - after which she finally darts past! There are a large series of mini explosions on the unit, and Ascian is shouting at Duat to give him back control of the unit. It takes a moment, and in many ways is too late, but the thing about Orbital Frames is that they always remain afloat. That is their main property when they were first invented, and it remains the main property that Ascian is quite happy about. The unit turns about, and fires a massive volley of red plasma bolts, aimed straight at the verniers of the enemy unit from the transformed rifle arm, before it shifts into a normal hand again and moves to that open wound, like a person trying to cover their pain. Its legs are slightly up, and its red eyes are lit like a demon from hell, staring angrily at the enemy. "No Amenthes." Ascian growls at his machine. "Stop it. This is not an eye-for-an-eye situation. That's a young pilot." The connection might have been reestablished by now, between Aki's machine and the Amenthes - which is clearly /not/ combat ready anymore. It slowly begins to float towards the ground, its energy reserves not quite enough to take off yet, after having expelled so many plasma bullets. "Tsssk... that new machine is insane. And its pilot isn't half bad either... -- hey, young miss -- you still alive over there!?" Peppered with stray shots midway through her parabolic curve to establish another swooping attack formation, Aki's yell is suddenly and abruptly cut off by her console turning all sorts of interesting red and blue colours; some are banks of warning lights corresponding to entire sections of her propulsion systems cutting out while others are overheat and venting warnings to advise a particularly plucky and suicidal pilot that hey, you might want to get onto the ground /right now/ for this. The power cable is ejected forcefully from the spearhaft, retracting into the machine against Aki's will, and the spear itself powers down to just become a hunk of very sharp metal. "Augghhhh, no /way/...! We /totally/ had that in the bag, come on, you can't give me just a little more?!" she entreats of her console, but the Brynhildr is already gliding downwards at a rapid rate in much the same manner as a gigantic, mechanoid stone. It lands roughly some distance from the Amenthes, feet and spearhead shearing off long arcs of sparks in what's left of the base cover as it skids to a halt and then settles on ruined, heated tarmac. The machine hunkers down slightly, returning to a neutral standby position as a pair of flaps open up in the wings, bursting and venting coolant into the air. The pilot slumps back in her chair as her console goes unresponsive, only reading "COOLING, PLEASE WAIT :)" with a little dancing ice cream next to it. She sits there for a moment, panting in exertion and the uncomfortable feeling of a completely red-raw hoarse throat, then sighs as she leans forward to flick her radio to a local wide-band. "Of course I am! I /told/ yer it'd take more than that to take me down." Sulkily, she puffs out her cheeks, then pokes at the console in front of her with an accusing finger. "Bryn is just /tired/, that's all." "Heh." Ascian smirks as the girl flicks that radio on and establishes an actual connection with the Amenthes again. "It would seem that way, wouldn't it? You're sure something else, kid." The red Phoenix styled Orbital Frame slowly lowers itself down besides the Tesla driven machine and then kneels down on both of its legs, one hand on its lap, like it was a person resting. Its head tilts slightly, looking at the design of the Brynhildr with some level of interest. With the other A-LAWS units retreating from the base, Ascian finds there to be no danger in opening the canopy of the cockpit, revealing his one-eyed self. Stupid bandage. But somehow, it does make him look a tad cool. He taps the front of the cockpit, and the Amenthes responds by raising its hand towards the cockpit, letting Ascian stand on it, and then moving it towards the Brynhildr, hovering near its cockpit. "Guess you win." The Martian chuckles, smirking at the girl - being all slumped back in her chair and everything. "I don't have any intentions of killing you really. But let that be off the record." he pats the gunholster at his side, undoes it, and then tosses the weapon right into the Amenthes' cockpit. "So how about you come out here and show me who you really are. Because that darn Camera really doesn't give me that great of a view." Aki shrugs expansively, still grinning in a rather wonky fashion as she taps her console a second time. "Well, it ain't like I can do a whole lot in here anymore, is it? Alright, yer on!" In a single hurried rush she undoes her seatbelt, reaches up for the hatch release on her cockpit, stands up as she hits the button to open it, and steps out to face the first ace she's taken on in battle!... --only somewhere along the way her legs wobble from the adrenaline catching up to her, and so by the time she's actually exposed to the outer elements she's kind of leaning on her console for support and balance and possibly even guidance. "COOLING :)" it helpfully advises, and as instructed Aki tugs her jacket around her to protect against the cold Russian air. She's not quite as tiny as she looks when yelling point-blank into a vidscreen, at least; young twenties, maybe a little below, pleasant enough face when it isn't being battered by her hairbraids thanks to Siberian winds. Over the top of a standard A-LAWS pilot suit she's got a white vest and a battered and beaten green hoodie with the zip half-done, the total picture of professionalism. She grimaces as she tries to pull the worst of her hair out of her eyes and stand up more confidently, kind of twigging that she should possibly be making a good impression for all of A-LAWS at this juncture, and takes a new look at her ex-opponent. "Well, I'm glad to /hear/ you weren't gonna /kill/ me or anything, I'm kind of allergic to the idea in general," she hrmphs, looking terribly imposing i.e. not in the slightest. The Orbital Frame pilot - blue hair, bandaged off eye, wearing a tight flightsuit that should be forbidden to ever be worn by a man, and generally looking fairly bishonen in a way - cannot help but raise his hand to cover up a smile. The fact that this girl, who had managed to best him in combat, is this clumsy outside of her machine is very much amusing to him. It reminded him of Seril, his adopted 'younger sister' in a ways. But then... older. He places one foot up against one of the Amenthes' finger tips, trying to look a bit cooler, and grins at the young lady. "Yeah, I didn't think you'd very much feel up to getting yourself killed. Especially not while in a fancy new unit like that." Ascian then hops down onto the nose of the machine, moving that hand at his mouth up to his hair to stop it from getting too much into his face. Luckily, it wasn't too long, so it wasn't going to get all over the place. The young man, easily in his mid twenties, lets his gaze skip over the girl. "You're certainly not as young as I figured you to be. Guess that's a good thing." He really was sick of dealing with all those sixteen year olds yelling at him, and whining how adults were ruining the battlefield or something. Though this girl... well... she didn't /act/ like her age. Not in his eyes anyhow. "Need any help there?" Standing on the Brynhildr now, he offers a hand, in case the girl needed help to get stable against the rather rough Russian wind. The girl takes the hand without even the slightest hesitation, but doesn't make any motion to move; she just holds up her other one in placation instead, until she can trust her feet to not pitch her sideways. "I'll be alright, I just... need a bit, 's all. Haaaaah..." she sighs out for a long moment, running a hand back through her hair as she finally centres herself a little, then all of a sudden beams giddily as she comes to a conclusion. "Well, that wasn't bad! Sure, I reckon I got a ways t'go an' all, but at least I didn't die in a fiery hellball or anythin' of the sort. On balance, I'd say that's comin' out on top." The grip in Ascian's hand suddenly shifts and she pumps it in a fierce handshake, then lets go to launch herself back into her seat with her fists pointed up at the sky with a cheer. "Next time, it'll be /totally/ different, you watch!... though, er..." She looks askance at the base around them. Littered with craters and burning wreckage, temporarily abandoned by the fleeing base personnel, the look on her face kind of plainly says that perhaps it's not a loss, but it's not much of a win, either. She palms her radio off for a moment; a technique learnt during long flight tests when she just wanted to eke out a couple more minutes of freedom from the batteries of checkboxes, and rattles off the next sentence quickly. "Anyway, you'd better get out of here. It's not like I can follow yer or anything, and I ain't in the mood to throw anyone in the brig or anything when it was a draw. But!--" she adds, holding up a finger and looking disapproving, which on her face just ends up kind of comical. "Don't think I'll be so forgiving next time!" When the girl tosses herself back after that firm handshake - one that might have 'felt' a bit weird to the girl, thanks to the slightly different bonestructure of Martians. Lower gravity and all that, making the development slower and less powerful (there's only so much that training can do) - Ascian jumps right back onto the palm of the Amenthes, which pulls that hand towards herself and sets Ascian back at the cockpit. "Just be careful. The rest of the Divine Crusaders are not as kind as I. They very well may kill you. You've been warned." The young man calls out, then lowers himself into his seat and lets the canopy close. And before the girl is able to depart, the Amenthes already has lift up and pushes off at high speed - whilst its chest begins to regenerate, metal twisting. Thanks to the special traits of Metatron, which produces way too much energy, and the SS armor, it is at least easy to maintain. "Right, right..." the young woman sighs to herself as the DC mech blasts off, closing her eyes, "I kind of guessed that when yer started shooting." She sinks back into her seat for the barest of moments before her own console blinks happily and some of the warning messages drain away, another vent of gas from the back of the mech turning the air around the cockpit several degrees towards the comfortably warm end of the scale. With a final grim look at the state of the base, she clicks her radio back on and slowly starts to power her machine into a light hover. "A-LAWS Aki Saitani to White Russia personnel, you guys can come back, bogey's gone. If you need repairs, I've got a walkin' power reactor ready to feed power to your crews. Er... sorry about the mess?" she adds sheepishly, and gets to work. Category:Logs